Moments and Interactions

Life is made up of moments and interactions, tens of thousands daily. Every one of these moments carries a weight behind it that we may not recognize and that’s the power of influence. With so many moments and interactions throughout the day, it’s hard to imagine that any one of those can influence the rest of another person’s day or even their life. Realizing this has made me look at how customer-employee interactions transpire.

As a business owner, your greatest customer satisfaction tool is your team. At the surface level, your employees are the people customers interact with and provide service. But your team is also the representation of your company and they ultimately determine whether or not that individual customer returns. Every interaction is important to overall customer satisfaction.

The problem is, you don’t know which moment or interaction is going to be the one that swings the pendulum in your favor. Through a single transaction, there are multiple interactions and opportunities to gain a repeat customer or be branded with a scathing review. In industries like auto repair, medical services, or airlines, where customers are naturally entering the relationship with a higher stress level, it is even more important to control these interactions.

One Interaction

One interaction can also completely change the customer’s opinion of an organization. I recently experienced this on a personal level from the customer side. I was traveling back from AAPEX this past November and I was flying on Spirit Airlines. I scheduled an early evening flight from Vegas to LAX and then on to Pittsburgh. Once at the airport, the notifications started coming in, my flight was delayed.

I thought to myself, “no problem, I should still make my connecting flight.” Then the next round of notifications came. My flight would be landing 5 minutes before the connecting flight’s door closed. Naturally, I approached the woman at the counter and asked what she thought my chances were. She immediately called the gate in LAX to inform them that there were passengers on this flight that would be cutting it close and she asked if they could possibly hold the closing of the gate for a few minutes. She also upgraded my seat to A1 so I would be the first off the plane.

When she printed my new boarding pass she noticed that they changed the gate. While racing through the airport to make my original flight, I received a phone call from a Las Vegas number that I had never seen. It was the woman from the gate. She was personally calling me to let me know that the same plane I was about to board would also be the plane taking me from Vegas to Pittsburgh, so I had absolutely nothing to worry about.

This series of interactions with one woman at the airport gate changed my opinion of the customer service offered by this budget airline. She did not need to call me to put my mind at ease but she did and that made my experience that much better. This is the power of one and this is why every person representing your business has the ability to help you succeed.